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The End Of the Road
Published: March 28th 2012Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Gold Coast » Burleigh Heads
March 28th 2012
Final Entry - The End Of The Road Well, this is it! The last blog entry for our, almost two year, trek around Oz. After leaving Adelaide we travelled through the towns along the Murray River. We made visits to Mannum, Walkers Flat, Renmark, Blanchetown and Echuca. Once again the weather was kind to us and the “Mighty Murray” was great to see. The “PS Murray Princess” was in dock at Mannum and was a magic sight. PS standing for “Paddle Steamer”. We took a trip up the river at Echuca, where the Murray is significantly narrower and dirtier than at Renmark. Nevertheless we ticked yet another box. From Echuca we headed for Bendigo where we caught up with my sister Jean’s son Steven. He was recovering from a serious back injury after being thrown from ... read more
February 17th 2012
New Year 2012 After picking up Cass from Melbourne Airport on 27th Dec. we made our way to Horsham. Did I mention previously that Georgina was also a passenger? Anyway the Prado coped really well with the extra load. Gina decided to entertain us with a bit of fancy dress after dinner (see snap). If you’re curious, Rose, Cass and myself slept in the van and G managed to book into a Backpacker cabin. 28th Dec saw us hit the road for Adelaide with a couple of stops at Maccas for coffee and breaky burgers. The one section of the trip around Oz that has been on my mind since we left home, has been the Adelaide Hills with long, steep inclines and declines. Needless to say I was more than anxious with the extra weight ... read more
January 27th 2012
Festivities are Over A Happy New Year to everyone. We arrived safely in Melbourne a week or so before Xmas and parked up in Wantirna. We visited my cousin Stephen and his wife Jenny and had a pleasant afternoon reminiscing about our “Slim Days”. Last time Stephen and I met, we were both in the low 80kg’s, but boy how things have changed! Jenny, once again, produced a superb home-made dish for lunch while Stephen showed us around his “communication centre”. (he has no fewer than 12 computers networked). The following day was spent catching up with my neice, Andrea and family. We had a lovely time at a little village called Warrandyte. The Yarra River flows alongside the village and the children had fun feeding the ducks. Andrea and Neil were a bit down at ... read more
December 16th 2011
Hi all Just a quick update. We've been pretty busy on the road for the last week, staying at Yamba, Tuncurry, Sydney, Wollongong, Jugiong and are now finally nearing Melbourne. We decided not to take the coast road on the way down from Sydney, other than visiting friends in Wollongong. We plan to return via the coast. We had an exciting journey through the mountains from Wollongong yesterday morning. The Macquarie Pass is so steep and windy for about 30km and we weren't sure if the car would manage the climb. Apart from that, the road is also very narrow in places and if any semi's came the other way we might have been stuck on the hairpin bends. I didn't like the thought of reversing the van down the mountain?? Luckily though we didn't meet ... read more
Here We Go Again
Published: December 6th 2011Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Gold Coast » Burleigh Heads
December 6th 2011
Here we go again….. Well, we’ve been on the Gold Coast now for almost three months and it’s time for us to head of on our travels again. We are due to be on Phillip Island by 22nd December for our family Xmas with Pete, Laura and the two families. Everyone will converge for a few days of Christmas cheer and I’ve no doubt there will be a bit of rivalry between the Aussies and Kiwis, not to mention the odd Pom??? We have had a great time here and enjoyed being near our family and friends again. The stays in the van by our lovely grand children have been special as was the “posh dinner” at Omeros Brothers with our oldest granddaughter, Tiarne (15!!). We’ve been lucky enough to celebrate Ellie’s birthday, Melbourne Cup day ... read more
August 31st 2011
Hello It’s a while since making the last entry, due to a busy schedule in Cairns. Our friends Paul and Heather came up to stay with us for a week in Crystal Cascades Holiday Park. The time flew with just about every day earmarked with an outing. We visited Kuranda by travelling up on the Train and returning on the Skyrail chairlift. What great rides they were. Another day was spent on a visit to Green Island, where we boarded a semi submersible boat to view the reef, just off the island. The fish life and corals were much better than anything we have seen before on previous reef visits. We had a couple of nice walks on what was supposed to be a “Lay Day”. We ended up walking about 10km on a very warm ... read more
July 30th 2011
Tis us again We had a great time in Atherton, visiting some of the local attractions. The old “Tin Mining” town of Herberton was especially good, with probably the best-kept heritage village we have seen so far. The visitor’s centre was also well managed with a very knowledgeable volunteer host on duty. Another day trip included a drive around Lake Tinaroo. Very picturesque views from some of the many camping spots along the way! One disturbing thing we came across though, was a sign warning people of the presence of the “Giant White Tailed Rat”!! Apparently there are reports of it chewing through tents, vehicle cabling and other things with its sharp teeth and very strong jaws. Any thoughts of camping there were quickly dismissed! We also stopped at some amazing Strangler Fig Trees (Cathedral and ... read more
July 17th 2011
Yes, we are still alive! Since leaving Katherine we made a relatively quick trip to Mt Isa where we caught up with Ellie’s boyfriend, Greg. We had a nice meal in the Buffs Club and had a chat about the area and other things. He told us about his recent trip up to Lawn Hill NP so we decided to check out the access etc. We met a lovely couple at the campsite, Bill and Marcie, who by chance, had also decided to try Lawn Hill so we arranged to travel in convoy along the gravel road, which starts a little distance from Camooweal. The road was pretty rough in places and very dusty. We had to hang back a fair way from Bill to avoid his dust. We had to cross about five creeks, which ... read more
June 21st 2011
Greetings All Well our revisit of Broome for my 60th birthday turned out to be a very special time. My sister Pat and her husband Dave flew out from UK and my son and his wife drove up from Karratha. I had a lovely birthday dinner at the Cable Beach Resort looking out over a classic Broome sunset. I had lots of cards, gifts, phone calls and messages from all my friends and family. Thanks again to you all. The following day saw Dave, Pete and myself on a fishing trip, hoping to catch a Barra or two. We were driven out to the Fitzroy River and spent 6hrs dangling our lures in the water. Pete caught a magic 97cm Barra and can you believe that it was too big to keep!! so it was kissed ... read more
May 29th 2011
Hi Everybody We finally rolled into Broome on Friday 27th May, after our 5000km treck from McLaren Vale, which started on 9th May. We did some big days of driving which gave us the luxury of staying two nights each at Katherine, Kununurra and Fitzroy Crossing. The Gibb River Road was closed when we got to Kununurra and we were very lucky to get a site as all of the serious 4WD adventurers were holed up, waiting for the road to reopen after the heavy rains of summer. By the time we arrived at Fitzroy Crossing, the road had reopened and we had the pick of the sites due to the mass evacuation of 4WD fanatics. The bitumen road between Kununurra and Fitzroy Crossing was in a shocking state, with huge washouts from the summer floods. ... read more
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